U.S. bishops from Region 13 walk in procession to pray at the tomb of St. Paul after concelebrating Mass at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Feb. 12, 2020, during their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses. (CNS/Paul Haring) Journalists who cover the Catholic Church face a hurdle in that most of the important decisions are made in secret. Personnel decisions are almost all made behind closed doors; a new bishop does not even know he is a candidate until he has been chosen. Even when a decision is public, as when the bishops elect committee chairs for the national conference, there are no campaign platforms to mark out why one candidate won and the other lost, and many times the differences are not ideological at all. It takes many years of attention to recognize the dynamics of a bishops' conference, to recognize that some alliances date back to relationships forged in seminary or as staffers in Rome, which issues unite the bishops and which divide them, and which connections in Rome can be employed to achieve a desired end. A journalist's job is to find ways to peek behind the curtain and explain what is going on and why.